Fox News Roots against America and Hopes for Higher Gas Prices

Last updated on February 7th, 2013 at 05:41 pm

Fox News hit a new low today by openly hoping for more pain for the American people in the form of gas prices reaching $5 a gallon before the presidential election.

Here is the video from Media Matters:

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Fox was blunt about it and put their strategy to defeat Obama on the air for all to hear, “Our crippling debt is what the issue is. For the first time in U.S. history our creditworthiness was called into question, and S&P downgraded us. That’s a huge wake up call, president. Stop the spending. Someone has to rein it in. Create the jobs that we need. Control the gas prices. You know, it’s amazing. I’m hoping gasoline stays close to five dollars in November, because that will be the reason. No joke. Think about it everything gets affected by it, your groceries commute, commutation costs.”

The big strategy to get Mitt Romney elected is to hope that the trend on gas prices reverses itself, and the price of gas goes up. This will cause the American people to have to pay more for everything, including necessities like food, clothing, and shelter. In Fox News dreamland, voters get so angry with Obama for causing the prices of gas to go up that they flood to the polls in November and vote him out of office.

Notice that nowhere in that scenario was Mitt Romney’s name mentioned. The whole conversation was an unspoken admission that Republicans know that no one is going to vote for Mitt Romney. Their best, some would say only, chance at victory is to get a majority of voter to vote against Obama.

As with everything else Fox News, there are some factual problems with the basis of their plan. Fox News was trying to blame Obama for the debt downgrade, when in reality the whole crisis was manufactured and caused by congressional Republicans. Polling demonstrates that voters know this, and hold the Republican Party responsible for the whole debacle.

Voters also aren’t buying the right’s argument that Obama can control gas prices. During the Bush years, Fox News spent many a summer months educating their viewers about the reasons why the president doesn’t control the price of gas. Fast forward to 2012, and the same network is now hoping that they can convince viewers that a Republican president can’t control gas prices, but a Democrat can.

With their open cheering for higher gasoline prices, Fox News has moved from anti-Obama to anti-America. There is something unpatriotic and fundamentally wrong with a news network that would hope for more pain to be inflicted on the American people because it would present a better electoral climate for the political party that they support.

Fox News is hoping for pain, misery, and hardship to befall the American people. In less than four years, Rupert’s network has gone from state run television to rooting against the economic welfare of the American people, but not even the mighty FNC propaganda machine can turn Mitt Romney into a credible presidential challenger, and no amount of bellowing flag waving can disguise Fox News’s contempt for the American people.

Jason Easley

Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.

Awards and  Professional Memberships

Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association